`Cavendish` strawberry (Fragaria.times.ananassa Duchesne) offers strawberry growers of the Northeast climatic zone (Himelrick and Galletta, (ed) "Small Fruit Crop Management" Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliff, N.J., 1990, pp. 14-82) a cultivar that is high yielding and resistant to red stele, producing large fruit of good quality in the midseason. Breeding for resistance to red stele root rot (caused by Phytophthora fragariae Hickman) began at Kentville in 1969, after Gourley and Craig (Can. Plant Dis. Surv. 48:93-94, 1968) demonstrated the field resistance of `Guardsman`. Significant progress was not made until `Earliglow` was included in the crossing program in 1977, and the sand bench screening method (Scott et al., HortSci - 11:257-258, 1976) was adopted in 1978. The `Earliglow` derivatives `Annapolis` and `Cornwallis`, released in 1984, provided immediate relief for those growers with soils infested in P. fragariae. These two early-midseason cultivars have achieved only moderate yields when compared to the midseason cultivars `Kent` and `Cavendish`.
`Cavendish` is named after the most popular tourist location of Price Edward Island.